Trying out new recipes to learn and perfect baking techniques

Something a little different this week. Never assume that because you’re camping you can’t have desserts. Recently, I did an 18-day kayaking trip in Greenland where we had to carry all our food for the trip. Having been recently inspired by a fellow kayaker that had taken a siphon on a kayaking expedition so he…

RECIPE: In Australia Melbourne Cup Day is a big deal. Not everyone is a fan of horse racing, but everyone loves dressing up and in Melbourne they even have a public holiday. The first flavours that came to mind were champagne and strawberries, which back in my student days was how we started celebrating. I…

I’m not going to say a lot here because I used the same recipe and followed largely the same process as I did last week when I made Steak and Mushroom Pie. I wanted a pie I could sell as a fundraiser, so I made party pies. Using a muffin tin gave me a good-sized pie….

RECIPE: I’ve been admiring decorative pie tops on Instagram and in particular @julie_jonesuk who does these incredibly intricate pastry cases. I thought I’d give it a go. The recipe I chose online from BBC Good Food was full of detailed instructions and very easy to follow. PREPARATION: I really wanted my beef to be tender,…

RECIPE: I’ve never eaten brioche before and had no idea how to eat it, but as it was a traditional french bread it was on my list to try. I followed the recipe but halved it, as I was only feeding two of us, and used dariole moulds instead of brioche moulds because that’s what…

RECIPE: I’ve made variations of all the components in this layer cake before, but there were a few new techniques that I thought made it worth trying. As a point of interest, I calculated the cost of the ingredients and found that I had spent about $45AUD on ingredients. It took me about six hours…

RECIPE: Okay so these may look more like buns than pretzels, but that’s because when I was twisting I didn’t allow for additional rise. I followed the recipe provided with slightly less glacé orange than listed. PREPARATION: I’m not sure what’s expected at the stage where you cover the dough with the remaining flour. My…

RECIPE: I decided that selling my baking would be a good way to raise money for the Arrow Bone Marrow Transplant Foundation, which I’m doing as part of participating in a kayak race. It was time to make something a bit fancy and I still hadn’t quite conquered choux pastry, so thought I’d try éclairs. I…

RECIPE: I found fresh yeast in the shops, so thought I’d try a different white bread recipe to see if the yeast improved my success rate. I made the full quantity of old dough, made a loaf from half the quantity of dough, saved the other half of the old dough in the fridge, then…

RECIPES: I take any opportunity to bake for other people because it’s a way to get practice without having a whole bunch of baking at home staring in my face begging me to eat it. I was running a training day at work and the catering was starting to look costly, so I decided to…